But you know what, that panoramic photo shows exactly the same sized crowd as the media showed in their bird’s eye pictures.

You can see that the photographer specifically got an angle where the entire frame was filled with people and Trump could be seen… where as the media was not interested in making a print for a customer but was interested in the fact that Trump’s crowd was tiny.

It’s an interesting example of how even when photographers do their job exactly as they should… other people can / will use your photographs to support their own narrative regardless of common sense and truth.

Some other stuff…

The panoramic photo was taken by Panoramic Visions Photography… Who apparently have a pretty unusable website straight out of the 90’s.

I do love the big plaque included with the photograph though. Super classy and totally doesn’t give the impression of desperate commercialism.

I also enjoy the fact that the photograph is dated as January 21st.

The swearing-in ceremony was on the 20th.

I am laughing my butt off… (Update 1/26/2017)

Shortly after I wrote this article and mentioned that Donald Trump would probably use the panoramic photo as “proof” that the crowd was as large as he feels it was… ABC did an interview with Trump here he did exactly that.

As the two toured Trump’s new home, the president stopped in front of a framed photo of his inauguration crowd.

“Here’s a picture of the crowd,” the president explained. “Now, the audience was the biggest ever, but this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive. And I would actually take that camera and take your time [scanning the crowd] if you want to know the truth.”

Then the president took Muir to see another image, a panoramic photo by a local artist who has taken the exact same shot at each inauguration since Reagan was in office. (The other years were not presented for contrast.)“One thing this shows is how far over they go here,” Trump said, walking up close to the print and pointing as he spoke. “Look. Look how far this is. This goes all the way down here. All the way down. Nobody sees that. You don’t see that in the pictures. But when you look at this tremendous sea of love — I call it a sea of love. It’s really something special, that all these people traveled here from all parts of the country, maybe the world, but all parts of the country. Hard for them to get here. Many of these people were the forgotten men and women, many of them. And they loved what I had to say. More importantly, they’re going to love the result.”

There I was hoping that my comment would be a little silly in hindsight and yet it turned out to be prophecy. This is the world we live in. A world where a basic understanding of perspective doesn’t even exist.

Donald Trump’s Crowd Was Almost As Tiny As His Hands

We aren’t done talking about Trump’s crowd sizes and the Trump team’s response to the truth. Frankly, I think other people feel how I felt about Monica Crowley’s plagiarism. Somebody has done something wrong and there needs to be a resolution to that poor behavior…

Anyways… the public’s conversation continues…

…
I wasn’t planning to write about what I saw on Friday until I saw White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer say on Saturday, “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” Then, as his voice shook and his face became mottled, he shouted, “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.” The next day, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said that Spicer was merely stating “alternative facts.”

These are not “alternative facts.” These are lies. This is an attempt at “gaslighting”: manipulating someone by psychological means into questioning their sanity. It’s unconscionable behavior for an anonymous Internet troll, let alone the press secretary of the president of the United States.

It’s one thing for a campaign to say things that are demonstrably untrue. That’s been the reality for as long as we’ve had campaigns. But it is chilling when people who hold the levers of power will look straight at a bank of cameras and lie.

So here’s the straight truth from someone who walked every inch of the inaugural ground on Friday. This was the smallest inauguration I’ve ever seen…